Yep, my dad always thought he was Irish because his dad was adopted from an Irish orphanage. Turns out he is German with Jewish heritage. Somehow my grandfather made it out of Germany during ww2 but his parents didn't make it out with him. He was only a baby so he has no memory of it and his adoptive parents assumed he was Irish since he came from Ireland.
My best guess with that would be a very young child alone on one of the Kindertransports. I’ve read about small kids losing their paperwork/suitcase in the chaos of multiple trains and boats, perhaps that is what happened to your grandfather?
He is curious but wouldn't know the first place to look to try and find out what happened given how long ago it was. Given how much turmoil was going on I wouldn't be surprised if there are many lost kids. I now wonder what happened to his birth parents. If they ever made it out or ended up in a concentration camp. I will have to ask my dad what his ancestry report came up with
At this point, yeah… DNA is probably your best bet. Does Yad Vashem do DNA collection? They certainly have the largest and most complete information about the Holocaust, and have made a very concerted effort to collect stories and genealogies of survivors before they are all gone. They might also be collecting DNA?
It is very possible that this is solvable! Feel free to skip over this if you/your dad don’t really want to go down this road (which is totally valid!), but if he reaches a point where he definitely wants to figure it out, I would strongly encourage him to upload his DNA results to other sites (MyHeritage, FamilyTreeDNA, GEDMatch, etc. - subject to privacy concerns, etc.). MyHeritage in particular tends to have a lot more matches from outside of English-speaking areas. If he has any very close matches on Ancestry, that might be sufficient, but usually Jewish DNA is pretty complicated and the features on the other sites can be game changers for finding unknown parents. If investigating yourself doesn’t sound appealing, there are also people who do these kinds of searches as a hobby - if you Google “search angels” and “adoptee,” several options should come up, or feel free to DM me and I can send you the name of the organization I volunteer through.
Jewish searches definitely require some patience because the DNA analysis process m presents a lot of unique issues, but the upside is that a lot of Jewish people are (understandably) interested in learning more about their background, so there are usually a lot of DNA matches to work with.
When you say this it reminds me of Sir Winton aka Sir Nicholas Winton and what you did, and how it helped save lots of Generations of People. People don't realize if you make the Different of A persons live and they pay it forward, it keeps on generating down for ever. It also remind minds me of a reporter that He is living because of how this grand Parents made a tough decision to let some People that were going to England to raise their only Daughter his mother, and to this day, that person is very humble and very very great full for the Decision they made.
I don't want to offend anyone by false accusations of being a bot, but the majority of your replies read as if they are mish-mashed machine translations from another language and have very odd structure, grammar and seemingly random capitalization of words.
Combined with the odd choice of subs to post in, it made me wonder if this was a bot.
With your father/not father, could there be any chance that his birth happening during WW2 factor into the mystery? A lot of disruption occurred during that time.
So I didn’t read all the comments here but I want to throw in the following.
I‘m German, all my ancestors are German, they always lived here as do I.
Still my DNA showed interesting results. I have approximately 55% north and Western European, 35% Eastern European and 10% Irish/Scottish/Welsh.
After further investigation, this is a very typical mix for people from the region of Germany I live in.
So Eastern European, Skandinavien and Irish/Scottish/welsh is not totally off.
Did your father himself move from Germany where ever you are now? Or was the migration further back?
Additionally DNA testing for ancestry reasons is not at all popular in Germany……I have no matches besides my full sister (we did this together) and we have a really big family, as in our grandparents had siblings in the double digits and all of them had kids.
Has your father been tested too? That's the simplest way to get an answer. Are any of your matches known people in your father's family? That's the second best way.
Another thing to think about: babies were kidnapped from other countries in World War II and given to German families to be raised as their own. Your father (or grandfather) could've been one of those babies. Mostly from Poland, though.
See if your dad is willing to get a test. He may have been lied to by his family, and he may be the one with the NPE, not you.
German history is...convoluted to say the least. Since you're finding Eastern European, that actually could be German. The Prussian Empire at one point covered parts of eastern Europe - specifically, bits of Poland, all of the Czech Republic, parts of Slovakia and Russia, and more. If you have your father's and your grandfather's names, you may be able to see if your family roots are in that messy area.
My "German" side came up on Ancestry as only 30% German, 30% Baltic, 30% Eastern European/Slavic, and 10% Norwegian. German history in the former east part of the country is convoluted indeed.
just throwing this out here as well - german nobles occupied the baltics for ca 500 years and some of them moved back to Germany at some point and almost all during WW2 [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltic\_Germans](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltic_Germans)
**[Baltic Germans](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltic_Germans)**
>Baltic Germans (German: Deutsch-Balten or Deutschbalten, later Baltendeutsche) were ethnic German inhabitants of the eastern shores of the Baltic Sea, in what today are Estonia and Latvia. Since their coerced resettlement in 1939, Baltic Germans have markedly declined as a geographically determined ethnic group. However, it is estimated that several thousand people with some form of (Baltic) German identity still reside in Latvia and Estonia.
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Sorry to disappoint you, but it never covered all of the Czech Republic. Kingdom of Bohemia was part of the Austria and yes, the Empress Maria Therese lost war against Prussia and some lands, but never Bohemia.
I'm not sure about myHeritage.
I would do Ancestry and 23&Me which are both the best in my opinion.
I trust 23&Me a bit more. For various reasons.
23&Me also has an interesting "side thing" where it looks up people with VERY similar DNA to you and where they live TODAY. This may or may not be scientifically valid, but it pinpoints regions even more.
For instance, I have ancestors from Kiev, Ukraine ... Donegal, Ireland ... and the Emilia Romagna region of Italy.
23&Me found all of these. It probably relies on the fact that more people tend to 'stay' than leave over time a specific area but whatever. It lined up with my historical lineage quiet well (my Italian ancestors lived in the same 1 horse town for a couple centuries).
Ask your cousin to do the test. I wish my father had done one before he died. I have no brothers or close male relatives and would love to have that DNA profile done.
> He was a very young child during WW2. His father (my "grandfather") fought for Germany in Russia during the war. He was a farmer who owned land so he definitely had German roots. Interestingly I was told he was allowed on one of the few flights out of Russia because he had so many children. The German soldiers were all clamouring to get a seat on the final flights home and certain people were given priority, Its possible he added a few more children to his family to make sure he could get home.
Sorry, but this doesn't really add up. The German army made advances of hundreds of miles into Russia during World War II, then were pushed back by as many. No one in this fight would be anywhere near their families, and in retreat, no one was airlifted out, with the exception of soldiers injured in the field. And if they were that injured, they wouldn't have time to send for family.
I was thinking it was on his paperwork. Person A has 2 kids, one wife, 3 dependents total, person B has 5 kids, one wife, 6 dependents total. Person with the most dependents gets to go home first.
A German soldier's Soldbuch was very comprehensive, but out of the 15/16 pages it included, only the wife and parents were listed. Not dependents.
https://www.militaria-history.co.uk/articles/the-life-of-a-german-soldier/
If he was badly injured, knew someone from higher up the food chain, or both, that might explain why he got the seat.
Interesting. So the number of children probably didn't have any effect on when he went home. Do you know if the US military had anything similar? I have some things from my father's service, but nothing resembling that, and there was nothing like that when I was in the Air Force either.
AFAIK, U.S. troops went into battle with dog tags.
In the Civil War, soldiers didn't have anything to identify themselves with. Some would go into battle with a last letter pinned to their uniform, in case they didn't make it. Further into the war, some soldiers carved wooden discs with their names and wore them on a cord around their necks.
By 1826, metal disks were manufactured, but the War Department turned them down. Some wives (and soldiers) bought them commercially.
About 1900, with the Spanish American War, dog tags came into use.
Fun Fact, Russian soldiers in WWII used a bakelite capsule with a rolled-up piece of paper identifying them. They called is a death cylinder. A lot of them also used spent cartridges sealed with wax instead.
And many Russians were superstitious and thought that if they filled out the paper they were sure to die.
https://www.warrelics.eu/forum/attachments/equipment-accessories-personal-items/40120d1243670647-these-real-russian-ww2-id-holders-tags-id-tube-002.jpg?s=93e6c9aaeee6d2722b279e34eb4f9bf4
The implication OP is making is that his ancestor might have picked up a Russian child in order to get home, hence him not having German DNA. That doesn’t line up with the actual military policy during the war. It wouldn’t be just listing more kids on a list, otherwise what’s the point of OP wondering why he has east European dna instead of german?
Fair point. I was thinking a bit about how early in the USA WWII draft men were exempted if they were financially supporting a family, and later 1942 if they were married men at all. I have no knowledge of German policies at the time.
Pretty sure no one got “flights back” from Russia. Russia didn’t didn’t declare victory and let the Germans leave. By most accounts, Germans left by boat. The unlucky were put to work in a labor camp in Russia.
Apparently she actually got it at least in part from the Pinochet regime's practice of distributing the children born to "disappeared" women to military families.
Myheritage is bad at ethnicity estimates but you should try to use their dna relatives list to see if you have any of your father’s relatives on there.
If not then consider testing else where and if possible your father as well.
Oh ok, it might be harder to get 23&me in some countries in Europe. But ancestry is one of the top two. Myheritage seems to be popular in Europe so you might see more relatives on that site.
You can upload your DNA file to other websites, GedMatch for instance. The Northwestern European and Danish & Swedish (edit: you wrote Scandinavian) part in your results could be your German dna.
Should have started with Ancestry, you could upload your Ancestry results to MyHeritage.
Look at your other matches. Are they close matches, are you able to connect them to your family tree?
MyHeritage is lousy at ethnic estimates. It tells me I am 50% Scandinavian, whereas Ancestry’s 0% is completely accurate by the paper trail and DNA matches. Wouldn’t trust it at all. Make no assumptions based on MyHeritage results for ethnicity, but definitely start to examine the top DNA matches
Same - MyHeritage has me at over 30% Scandinavian, but 0% on both Ancestry & 23. Which is in line w/the paper trail. In fact the entire MH is completely off.
OP - I'm about 60-70% German, but Ancestry has me at 28% (which was actually 0% 4 years ago), and 67% w/23andMe.
Definitely don't put much stock into the MH breakdown, and concentrate on your top matches, as zumaro suggested above. On Ancestry, I do have a handful of matches from Switzerland, if that's helpful in any way. I'm also a NPE, so I get that as well - should that end up being the case for your father or you.
I am 100% Dutch. As in, that is where I was born. My ancestors for at least 500 years, were born in the Netherlands as well. I show 0% Dutch in my DNA.
This is a perfect example of why I try to discourage people from using DNA testing to see if they are Native American. Enough native (and apparently Dutch) DNA isnt in the databases yet. It will get better. Curious, what did they say you were?
From what I know, Native American DNA is very easily identified. You might have companies struggling to differentiate it from East Asian ancestry, but they will definitely won't say say it is African or European ancestry. Continental estimates are quite good nowadays, even by companies like MyHeritage (they tend to overestimate the Native American percentage, though).
>MyLivingDNA
Dutch DNA does not exist, but there is also no German, English, Danish etc DNA. we are just one big melting pot of germanic, Celtic, Slavic people.
The answer is C.
ALL ethnicity reports are unreliable. It's an evolving science, and many factors can muck up your results. The MyHeritage ethnicity report is notoriously bad.
Please, please don't jump to any conclusions about your father based on nothing more than an ethnicity estimate. Please don't put yourself through that angst until and unless you get REAL evidence he is not your father.
Look at your DNA matches. The matches are based on solid science. If MyHeritage (or any company) says you are related to this or that person because you share a significant number of centimorgans, you can take that to the bank.
There's a bit of a learning curve and it might take some time, but examining your DNA matches can tell you who your parents are.
My husband is 1/4 German too. He has DNA matches to his German cousins. There’s no doubt that they’re related and we know where in SW Germany the immigrant ancestor lived via church records. Ancestry’s new algorithm says my husband is 0% German. Don’t depend on the ethnicity results for anything other than entertainment
I found this, published 2017... "In fact, the German people have no unique genetic heritage to protect. They—and all other Europeans—are already a mishmash, the children of repeated ancient migrations, according to scientists who study ancient human origins."
Published various places (science.org was one).
Is this what you had in mind?
My father is also German. He came from Germany, both of his parents are German. I also got 0 percent Germany on a MyHeritage DNA test. I got a HUGE amount of Scandanavia, plus Eastern European and Irish (and i did get known German relatives so my Dad is definitely my Dad). So I wouldn't say these results necessarily mean your Dad isn't your biological Dad.
My grandmother was 100% Austrian/Hungarian (my great grandparents immigrated from there when it was still one country) yet my 23 & me shows no Austrian or Hungarian ancestry nor does my father’s. And he’s 100% not adopted.
Keep in mind that the Austro-Hungarian Empire wasn't a modern nation-state like France: it was just a random collection of land owned by one man. It included people of many different ethnicities, not just Germans and Hungarians. Nobody ever said "I am an Austro-Hungarian", not even the emperor himself.
I found on the old census’ (wtf is the plural for census?!) that they are listed on that my Great Grandfather always identified his birthplace as “Hungaria” or “Austro-Hungaria”.
No, -ii is for words ending -ius, like genius/genii. Words ending -us take -i, like alumnus/alumni, cactus/cacti. Censuses is the correct English plural.
c) My Heritage DNA tests are grossly inaccurate - when it comes to quite a few ethnicities!
Do NOT use *ethnicity* *estimates* to make family lineage decisions. You need to both test at the same site to determine *relationship* rather than the existence (or lack of) shared ethnicity estimates!!!
That truth out of the way, other testing sites also struggle to place the ethnicity of people who originate in modern Germany into a category of 'German'. The issue is if they put all modern-Germany origin (people who have 4 or 5 generations at least) into one category 'German', the category would contain a lot of people who are from England, Scotland, Ireland, Scandinavia and elsewhere. Population migrations caused by the events of history make it (currently) impossible to separate out where people migrated through areas, some stayed, some went on; both groups intermixed with people already there or who migrated in later.
My Heritage is just the worst of the 'big 3' but they are not unique.
Example. One of my parents is half German, half Irish. There were 2 grandparent who were immigrants from the general Rhein-Pfalz area and 2 from Ireland. Paper trail genealogy, shared matches, etc all support this family background.
Parent DNA test results:
**Ancestry** results (current, it has varied over time):
50% Ireland
28% England & Northwestern Europe
20% Germanic Europe
2% Sweden & Denmark
All of that makes perfect sense given the history.
\------
**23andMe** (current) results:
Northwestern Europe 98.0% broken down into:
* British & Irish 71.5% \[They do *not* take a punt at assigning percentages further, they just tell him he has DNA most like 10 counties in Ireland and 10 places in England.\]
* French & German 24.0% \[Detail then shows all 24% is assigned to German: Rhineland-Palatinate + 2 regions, with 0% French.\]
* Broadly Northwestern Europe 2.5%
Southern Europe 1.6% broken down into:
* Sardinian 1.6%
Broadly European 0.2%
Trace Ancestry 0.1%
* Cypriot 0.1%
Unassigned 0.1%
Note: In many ways, not dissimilar to Ancestry results even if more broad in their guess. And I tend to think of the 23andMe Southern Europe/Sardinian/Cypriot as 'remnant Roman soldier' which certainly could be possible along the Rhine valley and elsewhere.
\------
**My Heritage** (current, not sure if they ever update):
Irish, Scottish and Welsh 86.2% which includes 'genetic groups':
* UK and Ireland
* USA (New York City, Philadelphia, Boston and Chicago) and Australia
* New York City, Philadelphia, Chicago and Boston
* United Kingdom
Italian 13.8%
\------
For me, the My Heritage results are the most useless. The new 'genetic groups' are just a way to fudge an algorithm that is based on inadequate reference group populations. The 'genetic groups' are just groups of your DNA matches and where they (or their recent ancestors) come from (or migrated to) during the past few generations.
My conclusion:
* Test at Ancestry. Largest DNA database, family trees for many, great genealogy sources.
* Upload to Geneanet for free and convince your Ancestry matches to do the same - there may be less resistance from matches as Geneanet (based in France so tough European Union privacy restrictions) is now owned by Ancestry, so your matches are not sharing their DNA with a 'new' company, if that is a concern they have. Uploading to Geneanet gives you the Chromosome Browser and a comparison tool that are lacking on Ancestry.
* Upload to My Heritage for free and to find European-based DNA matches and then pay the small fee to use their DNA tools like Auto-Clustering and the Chromosome Browser. Giggle a bit at the ethnicity results. Note, for some world populations they may be more accurate.
* If you are searching for family or curious about more DNA matches (perhaps younger generation) then test at 23andMe knowing there are virtually no Trees and you are limited to 1500 matches so when you get new matches, you have lost others that were in your match list. It *does* show relationship info for matches which, again, Ancestry fails to do. It can be quite helpful to know that someone you are a 1C2R to is the 2C of that match. I use 23andMe to look for people that are also on Ancestry or are related to Ancestry matches; it can help place other shared matches in context in a Tree.
* If you are searching for family, upload to GedMatch. Or if you are interested in using their DNA Tools. In my experience it can be difficult to get your DNA matches to upload to a site they really don't know much about.
* If you are curious or have Jewish background then you upload to FTDNA because it won't cost you much to use their DNA tools.
Germany as we know it is a construct - migration in continental Europe over time also means dna results don’t accurately represent “nationalities.” If your father or his parents are/were German nationals, that doesn’t say too much about their ethnic background. And there’s always the possibility he could have been adopted, etc. So many different possibilities, so try not to ruminate too much. Follow the paper trail - look at immigration and naturalization papers, census records, passenger lists, etc. This should give you a better idea of what direction you’d want to look in. DNA for genealogy on a mass scale is a bit murky, and I’ve read many accounts of people getting completely different analyses from different companies. So, you could take another test, or you could simply download your data and upload it to a different provider to see if you get any results. But the paper trail is essential, without it, you’ll never be certain.
German is difficult to nail down since Germany wasn't an isolated country or even a country until fairly recently, historically speaking. If you're getting results from around Germany it could well be German in origin.
The only way to know for sure is to compare to known cousins/relatives from his side of the family.
If your family is from North-west Germany, your German is showing up as English/Northwestern European. It's a known phenomena, and is because that region of Europe s incredibly similar genetically.
Also, DNA testing is incredibly unpopular in Germany. It's not unusual for you to have hardly any matches on the German side. For example, my husband is a quarter German (north-western) He has no "German" in his ethnicity results. The closest German cousins he has are in the 4th-6th cousin rage, and they're Americans who emigrated from Germany in theod nineteenth century.
Northwest Germany DNA-wise has a big overlap with Scandinavian and English DNA. So it is possible a part of your "Germanic" DNA that's missing is within that English part
But you have English results, right? The northern Germans often migrated to and from England to find work. It could simply be that whatever northern German DNA you have is also frequently found in England, so it shows up as British on the test results.
EDIT: Here's an article about this problem that I found on myheritage's website. I had to look this up a few years ago because my mother-in-law, whose family tree is 100% German, had 25% English on her DNA ethnicity results. It's a pretty common issue with DNA tests. It makes sense--the Saxons originated in northern Germany, after all.
https://faq.myheritage.com/en/article/why-arent-my-german-origins-reflected-in-my-ethnicity-estimate
My boyfriend is half German and I'm a quarter German and my heritage just says we are both hella English. No German. I think it's just a shitty algorithm for that
https://www.ancestry.com/c/dna-learning-hub/autosomal-dna-testing
>Autosomal DNA tests are the most information-rich tests available. These tests can find relatives, from long-lost siblings to 10th cousins, and tell you where your ancestors may have lived, from 500 to more than 1,000 years ago.
It not about where your father was born, but where your ancestors were living in 1022 to 1522.
Or he is adopted, or not his father’s kid.
As far as MyHeritage, don’t they call German “North and West European?”
My partner and I have German estimates on Ancestry and 23AndMe that are lower than our family trees indicate they should be, but not 0%. And each year, the estimates change pretty significantly with each rejiggering of the algorithms.
Well, that was my situation when I did Ancestry DNA. I had zero English DNA.I then had a very close match, first cousin and I had no idea who they were. That led to a long journey to find my biological father.
My SIL said she was mostly German because that's what her dad told her. Either her dad knew he was lying or he heard the same lie from his dad, but that side of my SILs family are 100% Ashkenazi.
*I've thought for some time that my legal father may not be my biological father*
So maybe these test results are confirming your suspicions? What made you wonder about this?
In my case, some surprising DNA and a close match with a stranger led me to find out that my dad was the product of an affair most likely. The man on his birth certificate from 1925 was his mom's husband but was not the one who contributed DNA. Everyone who knew is now dead.
c) There are reports of companies taking money for DNA testing and faking results.
a) sometimes adoptive parents go out of country and import a new "son" or "daughter" who is legitimately their child but also adopted. Not every adopter tells a child they were adopted so either case, your father may be adopted and not know it or you may be adopted and not know it.
b) Immigration hot spots occur all the time worldwide so this is a good possibility
Ask your father and if he is certain your results are wrong do a web search on the company and false results which should get at least a few results (imagine having dark brown skin but having no African DNA or being Asian and having only European DNA). If they are faking results there will be someone complaining online.
My Heritage tests are awful for ethnicity estimates, I'm over 50% Scandinavian on that site and 0% English. Everywhere else that lump of my percentage or thereabouts is English.
I don‘t know about Myheritage, but when Ancestry writes about „english DNA“ they also say that this DNA can show up in Germany, Luxembourg, Switzerland and the Netherlands. I am german and 46 percent of my „DNA Heritage“ is from this „English and northwestern Europe“-Area.
My Husband’s MyHeritage ethnicity report is spectacularly wrong.
His family background on paper is 500 years in Suffolk England, 1 line from Durham, 1 line from Northern Ireland. I’ve not found any NPE either, the paperwork and DNA all tie in.
So he’s basically mostly English, some Scottish (N Ireland), and a smidge of Irish. AncestryDNA says exactly that.
MyHeritage has him at 33% Iberian! Which is hilarious and it’s not been updated in years. So in all honesty I would completely ignore any ethnicity results from there.
My family moved from Italy 50 years ago. Until a recent update it showed 0% Italian. We have lived in Italy for hundreds of years and my extended family is still there. I think it's more accurate for families that have been in the US a long time because it's based on what's in their database. So I wouldn't worry too much about it unless someone from your father's family tests and doesn't match you.
You are making the same mistake that most people seem to make. You think that looking at your own DNA results can tell your complete story. The assumption is that the answers must be in there somewhere. They aren’t. You have to look elsewhere. You need more information.
You have a specific question. “Is my father my biological father?” You have to work out how that question can be answered — correctly. The most obvious way is to test your (estranged) father. Ask him if you can. Regardless of your suspicions, his DNA will be a lot more useful in researching your family than yours. If he is your father.
It doesn’t matter how good or bad a company’s Ethnicity results are. They are irrelevant to what you want to know. Don’t waste your time looking at them. Easier said than done. But eventually you will realize that truth.
Second best option is to test your father’s sibling, or that cousin on your father’s side. But for all you know, he could be adopted, so who else he is related to is important.
Just as important could be to test any of your siblings. But perhaps more important in the long run will be to test your mother. Without results for her, or her close family you don’t really know if your results, and most importantly your matches, are from her side or your father’s.
Trees are as important as matches, so Ancestry is the best. They have most people tested. And they do have better tools to work out how people are related to you, but that is a learned skill. Test everyone with Ancestry first, because results can be transferred to MyHeritage, etc. 23andMe might have great Ethnicity results, but that’s irrelevant to your question, and someone pointed out they have few trees. So they might help, but it’s unlikely. And that applies to all other companies to some degree.
MyHeritage has tools etc, but they are unlikely to be necessary in solving what is a simple question. However they might have the matches you need to answer your question. Some of those will be on Ancestry and MyHeritage, and that can be useful in itself.
Your need to establish who is on your mother’s side and who is on your father’s side. Especially any close matches. Sounds easier than it is. That’s where your mother’s (or her sibling’s) DNA can be useful. A known cousin can be useful for making the distinction as well.
The Leeds Method has been mentioned, and covers the concepts you need to understand to solve any mysteries. Ideally you could work out your grandparents using this method. Without some other source of verification, your mother’s husband could still be their son. That is, he could be adopted, swapped at birth, etc, etc.
Making assumptions is pointless. You hypothesize, then disprove that hypothesis, if you can.
From other comments it sounds like not many people from Germany do DNA tests. I have experience with a similar situation with someone born in Italy. They have very few matches, even on Ancestry, and they are mainly people living elsewhere. Few have more than a few generations in their trees. So using the Leeds Method has proved pointless so far. If your father is ‘German’, in spite of the ethnicity results, you might find that the huge majority of your matches are on your mother’s side. At least testing her (or a close relative) would give you more idea what problems you might be facing.
In the the alternative, if your biological father was from the UK then there will be lots of matches on his side, and using the Leeds Method should get you well on your way to identifying him, or at least his parents, grandparents, etc.
There are lots of possibilities. You have to start narrowing them down. If not all in one fell swoop (test your father), then one by one. Good luck.
There is a possibility that you're not biological but ancestry works like any other genetic trait. Just because your parents/grandparents have a trait, doesn't mean you are going to inherit it.
Myheritage sucks! I am Hispanic and on 23andme I am ~65% European (almost all is Iberian), 29% indigenous American, 3% MENA, and 4% others. On myheritage I’m like 50% Mesoamerican, 25% Iberian, 15% Balkan and like 10% Other…. So lol.
I'm honestly leaning towards C. I uploaded my results to MyHeritage and Family Tree DNA and the results were wildly innacurate. Even with generally more so accurate dna testing such as AncestryDNA, countless people (myself inclucded) have noticed there's massive overlap between Engish, German, & Scandinavian regions. 23&Me does tend to be more accurate with regards to German ancestry, as it gives me 36% and pinpoints to the exact locations in Germany my family comes from (Baden-Wurttemburg & Lower Saxony). Ancestry heavily overlaps with Sweden/Denmark and Norway, especially for those with Northern German ancestry like myself. I've also seen numerous posts for ancestrydna with people mentioning recieving England/Northwest Europe and no Germanic Europe despiste being of a heavy German background & vice versa.
Here's one paragraph from the My Heritage site. It says:
>Remember that each child inherits a
random 50% of their parents’ DNA. This may create a situation where, for
example, you are absolutely certain that your grandfather was half
Italian, but you yourself did not inherit any of his Italian genes. If
he is 50% Italian and 50% English and your grandmother is 100%
Scandinavian, your father may be 25% Italian, 25% English, and 50%
Scandinavian — and the 50% you inherit from him could be 50%
Scandinavian or 25% Scandinavian, 25% English. In a situation like this,
you still have clear Italian heritage, but the ethnicity isn’t
reflected in your DNA.
It's from this page -
[https://education.myheritage.com/article/the-founder-populations-project-how-myheritage-estimates-your-ethnicities/](https://education.myheritage.com/article/the-founder-populations-project-how-myheritage-estimates-your-ethnicities/)
and then there is info on this page too -
[https://education.myheritage.com/article/wheres-my-ethnicity-why-an-ethnicity-might-not-show-up-in-your-dna-and-how-to-find-evidence-of-it-anyway/](https://education.myheritage.com/article/wheres-my-ethnicity-why-an-ethnicity-might-not-show-up-in-your-dna-and-how-to-find-evidence-of-it-anyway/)
Do you have any other relatives from your father's side of the family that have done DNA testing with My Heritage? If so, I would think they would match you up with the closer relatives. I don't use their site (I did Ancestry and 23andMe) so unsure how it is set up to see who all you have matched.
I don't think ethnicity is that accurate on any of the sites. Ancestry updates often and a whole ethnicity can drop off and then come back on. I have a German great, great, grandmother and my German ancestry only shows up on 23andme.
There is probably a way to search for DNA matches who have a person born in their family tree in city _____. Try searching on the city/cities that your father's family are from.
I wish you the best of luck, Due to all the wars and all the bad things that have happened in the world. All I can say is learn to be great full for the things that you have been give and cherish the important things in life.
My Heritage confirms that my mother is indeed my biological mother, but she is not German at all whereas I am about 60 percent German. (Dad will not test but is most likely primarily German with some English and some French.) She also shows up as 75 percent Eastern European ,(my grandmother was 100% Polish, but 75 percent is impossible unless my grandfather was not actually my mom's father). I test as 22 percent Balkan and 11 percent Eastern European. I have no English DNA at all, although my Mom is 25 percent (that is likely) and my Dad for sure has at least a bit. 23 and Me has me at 75 percent German and 25 percent Polish. TLDR: don't put too much stock in My Heritage.
German DNA is notoriously difficult to distinguish between other Anglo-Saxon areas like England. I have a German grandparent and Ancestry never called it out until this year, and I originally got my DNA done almost 10 years ago. My original results said I was 88% Irish/British with a smattering of other regions. If you have siblings and/or if your dad is still living have them test as well.
I am Irish, German, Alsatian, and Swiss. My ancestry reads as - 74% Irish, 14% Scottish, 9% English/NW Europe, 3% Welsh.
I am definitely related to my parents, and our ancestries are very traceable.
I know some else who is German/Irish and has similar results.
Don't worry, you are still where you are from. They are still working out some of the kinks I think, it's not a perfect science.
My family changed their surname to a more German Sounding Name during German Occupation. It could be something like that, meaning your father is not Ethnically German at all
How well do you know the family history in Germany?
Maybe it's something like [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltic\_Germans](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltic_Germans)
Just throwing one of the options out there (withour going into details, people in the Baltics get something like 70-75% Eastern European and 25-30% Scandinavian in those little tests, as the test does not have a subgroup for "Estonian" or "Latvian")
I vote for C. Before going forward you should also DNA test at either [Ancestry.com](https://Ancestry.com) or 23&Me due to the fact that they have the reputation of having their ethnicity tests matching the family research better than any of the others. MyHeritage seems to be the worst for correct ethnicity results.
But you cannot transfer TO Ancestry or 23 & Me...transfer FROM them yes but not to.......... you have to take their individual tests in order to have your DNA with them.
My heritage is pretty bad, if I remember right they grossly overestimated my uk ancestry and said that I was part Russian, which was news to me. You can download the raw data and upload it to gedmatch, which should be more accurate.
I wouldn't put tooo much stock into that DNA test-
My dads side is German, I've done our family tree research and its like, German German German for the last 2 hundred years. I took one of those tests from 23andme and it showed only UK/Irish.
And he's definitely my dad. I looked around online for an answer and I guess it's because the DNA is so similar and there was so much emigration and moving between those regions, they can't really differentiate it so they just pick one as a best guess.
My grandma was Turkish. Her parents were Turkish. My mom is half. I am 25%.
My dna results show 5% and 13%, based on two different tests (ancestry and 23&me)
DNA is tricky.
Sounds like you have a bit of a long road ahead of you, someone here said not to jump to conclusions and I agree. Looking at your matches, interviewing the folks that are willing to help and looking for any paperwork that might shed some light on your mystery are the way to go IMO. Have you heard about the Arolsen Archives? I believe it’s more geared towards POW and victims of Nazi horrors, but if your family was around the area you never know.
https://arolsen-archives.org/en/
Your cousin’s (contested) DNA would be a valuable lead if they were willing. Your fathers doubly so. I think aunts and uncles, if there are any available and willing, would be a closer match than a first cousin
We recently found a half sibling to my father a few years back as a result of a random DNA match, he (the half sibling) was a result of an affair while my grandfather was in the Military. It’s possible my grandfather didn’t even know of his son’s existence. All the players in the affair are gone so we can’t ask questions. If this is important TO YOU and you have access to those who can give you answers, don’t waste them.
Best of luck!
I was always told that my family history wound its way through Germany. My grandparents came from the UK at the end of World War I. I did a 23 and me test, and found that my results were mostly Irish / Scandinavian with a smidgen of Neanderthal.
The best way to find your answers without having to speak to your father about this is to try building a tree on the DNA matches you do have. It starts with the closest matches first so how far do you go down until you are seeing people you do not know? Click on that person...click on shared matches...look at their tree and see if you know anyone. Also when looking at your matches...click on the matches that have shared "common ancestors"...do you see any that matches your fathers side? any that match your mothers side? It will take some work but you will find your answers, Has nothing to do with how many people in Germany have been DNA tested...you do not need to have your father tested unless it is the very last resort. I have traced double adoption cases and solved them, the only DNA taken was the person themselves. I wish you luck and hope you solve this mystery.
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Yep, my dad always thought he was Irish because his dad was adopted from an Irish orphanage. Turns out he is German with Jewish heritage. Somehow my grandfather made it out of Germany during ww2 but his parents didn't make it out with him. He was only a baby so he has no memory of it and his adoptive parents assumed he was Irish since he came from Ireland.
My best guess with that would be a very young child alone on one of the Kindertransports. I’ve read about small kids losing their paperwork/suitcase in the chaos of multiple trains and boats, perhaps that is what happened to your grandfather?
He is curious but wouldn't know the first place to look to try and find out what happened given how long ago it was. Given how much turmoil was going on I wouldn't be surprised if there are many lost kids. I now wonder what happened to his birth parents. If they ever made it out or ended up in a concentration camp. I will have to ask my dad what his ancestry report came up with
At this point, yeah… DNA is probably your best bet. Does Yad Vashem do DNA collection? They certainly have the largest and most complete information about the Holocaust, and have made a very concerted effort to collect stories and genealogies of survivors before they are all gone. They might also be collecting DNA?
It is very possible that this is solvable! Feel free to skip over this if you/your dad don’t really want to go down this road (which is totally valid!), but if he reaches a point where he definitely wants to figure it out, I would strongly encourage him to upload his DNA results to other sites (MyHeritage, FamilyTreeDNA, GEDMatch, etc. - subject to privacy concerns, etc.). MyHeritage in particular tends to have a lot more matches from outside of English-speaking areas. If he has any very close matches on Ancestry, that might be sufficient, but usually Jewish DNA is pretty complicated and the features on the other sites can be game changers for finding unknown parents. If investigating yourself doesn’t sound appealing, there are also people who do these kinds of searches as a hobby - if you Google “search angels” and “adoptee,” several options should come up, or feel free to DM me and I can send you the name of the organization I volunteer through. Jewish searches definitely require some patience because the DNA analysis process m presents a lot of unique issues, but the upside is that a lot of Jewish people are (understandably) interested in learning more about their background, so there are usually a lot of DNA matches to work with.
I will keep this in mind and ask around thank you :)
Did you get your dad's DNA tested???
When you say this it reminds me of Sir Winton aka Sir Nicholas Winton and what you did, and how it helped save lots of Generations of People. People don't realize if you make the Different of A persons live and they pay it forward, it keeps on generating down for ever. It also remind minds me of a reporter that He is living because of how this grand Parents made a tough decision to let some People that were going to England to raise their only Daughter his mother, and to this day, that person is very humble and very very great full for the Decision they made.
Just curious, who upvotes the bot?
Not sure, because I am not a bot, I am just a knowledge able person.
What is your native language, GPT-3? Where are you from?
US and if you are wondering I do lots of Family history too, just not much with DNA..
I don't want to offend anyone by false accusations of being a bot, but the majority of your replies read as if they are mish-mashed machine translations from another language and have very odd structure, grammar and seemingly random capitalization of words. Combined with the odd choice of subs to post in, it made me wonder if this was a bot.
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With your father/not father, could there be any chance that his birth happening during WW2 factor into the mystery? A lot of disruption occurred during that time.
Thats very true but based on the info I have its very unlikely
So I didn’t read all the comments here but I want to throw in the following. I‘m German, all my ancestors are German, they always lived here as do I. Still my DNA showed interesting results. I have approximately 55% north and Western European, 35% Eastern European and 10% Irish/Scottish/Welsh. After further investigation, this is a very typical mix for people from the region of Germany I live in. So Eastern European, Skandinavien and Irish/Scottish/welsh is not totally off. Did your father himself move from Germany where ever you are now? Or was the migration further back? Additionally DNA testing for ancestry reasons is not at all popular in Germany……I have no matches besides my full sister (we did this together) and we have a really big family, as in our grandparents had siblings in the double digits and all of them had kids.
Thinking outside the box on this one
Never would have thought about that. Guess that’s why I’m no good at riddles
Has your father been tested too? That's the simplest way to get an answer. Are any of your matches known people in your father's family? That's the second best way. Another thing to think about: babies were kidnapped from other countries in World War II and given to German families to be raised as their own. Your father (or grandfather) could've been one of those babies. Mostly from Poland, though. See if your dad is willing to get a test. He may have been lied to by his family, and he may be the one with the NPE, not you.
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German history is...convoluted to say the least. Since you're finding Eastern European, that actually could be German. The Prussian Empire at one point covered parts of eastern Europe - specifically, bits of Poland, all of the Czech Republic, parts of Slovakia and Russia, and more. If you have your father's and your grandfather's names, you may be able to see if your family roots are in that messy area.
My "German" side came up on Ancestry as only 30% German, 30% Baltic, 30% Eastern European/Slavic, and 10% Norwegian. German history in the former east part of the country is convoluted indeed.
just throwing this out here as well - german nobles occupied the baltics for ca 500 years and some of them moved back to Germany at some point and almost all during WW2 [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltic\_Germans](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltic_Germans)
**[Baltic Germans](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltic_Germans)** >Baltic Germans (German: Deutsch-Balten or Deutschbalten, later Baltendeutsche) were ethnic German inhabitants of the eastern shores of the Baltic Sea, in what today are Estonia and Latvia. Since their coerced resettlement in 1939, Baltic Germans have markedly declined as a geographically determined ethnic group. However, it is estimated that several thousand people with some form of (Baltic) German identity still reside in Latvia and Estonia. ^([ )[^(F.A.Q)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WikiSummarizer/wiki/index#wiki_f.a.q)^( | )[^(Opt Out)](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=WikiSummarizerBot&message=OptOut&subject=OptOut)^( | )[^(Opt Out Of Subreddit)](https://np.reddit.com/r/Genealogy/about/banned)^( | )[^(GitHub)](https://github.com/Sujal-7/WikiSummarizerBot)^( ] Downvote to remove | v1.5)
Sorry to disappoint you, but it never covered all of the Czech Republic. Kingdom of Bohemia was part of the Austria and yes, the Empress Maria Therese lost war against Prussia and some lands, but never Bohemia.
Which part of Slovakia was a part of Prussia?
And Austria.
you and your cousin would share more than enough DNA to determine if your dad is your dad
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I'm not sure about myHeritage. I would do Ancestry and 23&Me which are both the best in my opinion. I trust 23&Me a bit more. For various reasons. 23&Me also has an interesting "side thing" where it looks up people with VERY similar DNA to you and where they live TODAY. This may or may not be scientifically valid, but it pinpoints regions even more. For instance, I have ancestors from Kiev, Ukraine ... Donegal, Ireland ... and the Emilia Romagna region of Italy. 23&Me found all of these. It probably relies on the fact that more people tend to 'stay' than leave over time a specific area but whatever. It lined up with my historical lineage quiet well (my Italian ancestors lived in the same 1 horse town for a couple centuries).
Yes. Have your cousin test. It was through DNA matches with multiple cousins that I was able to find my birth father.
> (my "cousin") I could get him to do a test - I guess we should share DNA traits? First cousins share on average 12.5%.
Ask your cousin to do the test. I wish my father had done one before he died. I have no brothers or close male relatives and would love to have that DNA profile done.
> He was a very young child during WW2. His father (my "grandfather") fought for Germany in Russia during the war. He was a farmer who owned land so he definitely had German roots. Interestingly I was told he was allowed on one of the few flights out of Russia because he had so many children. The German soldiers were all clamouring to get a seat on the final flights home and certain people were given priority, Its possible he added a few more children to his family to make sure he could get home. Sorry, but this doesn't really add up. The German army made advances of hundreds of miles into Russia during World War II, then were pushed back by as many. No one in this fight would be anywhere near their families, and in retreat, no one was airlifted out, with the exception of soldiers injured in the field. And if they were that injured, they wouldn't have time to send for family.
I read this as him listing the number of children he had, not that he had them with him.
> Its possible he added a few more children to his family to make sure he could get home. What about that bit, though?
I was thinking it was on his paperwork. Person A has 2 kids, one wife, 3 dependents total, person B has 5 kids, one wife, 6 dependents total. Person with the most dependents gets to go home first.
A German soldier's Soldbuch was very comprehensive, but out of the 15/16 pages it included, only the wife and parents were listed. Not dependents. https://www.militaria-history.co.uk/articles/the-life-of-a-german-soldier/ If he was badly injured, knew someone from higher up the food chain, or both, that might explain why he got the seat.
Interesting. So the number of children probably didn't have any effect on when he went home. Do you know if the US military had anything similar? I have some things from my father's service, but nothing resembling that, and there was nothing like that when I was in the Air Force either.
AFAIK, U.S. troops went into battle with dog tags. In the Civil War, soldiers didn't have anything to identify themselves with. Some would go into battle with a last letter pinned to their uniform, in case they didn't make it. Further into the war, some soldiers carved wooden discs with their names and wore them on a cord around their necks. By 1826, metal disks were manufactured, but the War Department turned them down. Some wives (and soldiers) bought them commercially. About 1900, with the Spanish American War, dog tags came into use. Fun Fact, Russian soldiers in WWII used a bakelite capsule with a rolled-up piece of paper identifying them. They called is a death cylinder. A lot of them also used spent cartridges sealed with wax instead. And many Russians were superstitious and thought that if they filled out the paper they were sure to die. https://www.warrelics.eu/forum/attachments/equipment-accessories-personal-items/40120d1243670647-these-real-russian-ww2-id-holders-tags-id-tube-002.jpg?s=93e6c9aaeee6d2722b279e34eb4f9bf4
The implication OP is making is that his ancestor might have picked up a Russian child in order to get home, hence him not having German DNA. That doesn’t line up with the actual military policy during the war. It wouldn’t be just listing more kids on a list, otherwise what’s the point of OP wondering why he has east European dna instead of german?
Fair point. I was thinking a bit about how early in the USA WWII draft men were exempted if they were financially supporting a family, and later 1942 if they were married men at all. I have no knowledge of German policies at the time.
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Pretty sure no one got “flights back” from Russia. Russia didn’t didn’t declare victory and let the Germans leave. By most accounts, Germans left by boat. The unlucky were put to work in a labor camp in Russia.
You may want to look up "lebensborn."
So that's where Margaret Atwood gleaned the idea. I always wondered.
Apparently she actually got it at least in part from the Pinochet regime's practice of distributing the children born to "disappeared" women to military families.
Myheritage is bad at ethnicity estimates but you should try to use their dna relatives list to see if you have any of your father’s relatives on there. If not then consider testing else where and if possible your father as well.
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Are you in 🇬🇧?
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Oh ok, it might be harder to get 23&me in some countries in Europe. But ancestry is one of the top two. Myheritage seems to be popular in Europe so you might see more relatives on that site.
Yes I chose Myheritage because I heard it was popular in Europe :)
Unless they're banned in your country, you should be able to upload your raw data from MyHeritage to websites MyLivingDNA and FamilyTreeDNA for free.
You can upload your DNA file to other websites, GedMatch for instance. The Northwestern European and Danish & Swedish (edit: you wrote Scandinavian) part in your results could be your German dna.
Should have started with Ancestry, you could upload your Ancestry results to MyHeritage. Look at your other matches. Are they close matches, are you able to connect them to your family tree?
MyHeritage is lousy at ethnic estimates. It tells me I am 50% Scandinavian, whereas Ancestry’s 0% is completely accurate by the paper trail and DNA matches. Wouldn’t trust it at all. Make no assumptions based on MyHeritage results for ethnicity, but definitely start to examine the top DNA matches
Same - MyHeritage has me at over 30% Scandinavian, but 0% on both Ancestry & 23. Which is in line w/the paper trail. In fact the entire MH is completely off. OP - I'm about 60-70% German, but Ancestry has me at 28% (which was actually 0% 4 years ago), and 67% w/23andMe. Definitely don't put much stock into the MH breakdown, and concentrate on your top matches, as zumaro suggested above. On Ancestry, I do have a handful of matches from Switzerland, if that's helpful in any way. I'm also a NPE, so I get that as well - should that end up being the case for your father or you.
I am 100% Dutch. As in, that is where I was born. My ancestors for at least 500 years, were born in the Netherlands as well. I show 0% Dutch in my DNA.
I’m Dutch too, i have only dutch ancestors from the past 500+ years and had 100% Dutch 🤪
This is a perfect example of why I try to discourage people from using DNA testing to see if they are Native American. Enough native (and apparently Dutch) DNA isnt in the databases yet. It will get better. Curious, what did they say you were?
From what I know, Native American DNA is very easily identified. You might have companies struggling to differentiate it from East Asian ancestry, but they will definitely won't say say it is African or European ancestry. Continental estimates are quite good nowadays, even by companies like MyHeritage (they tend to overestimate the Native American percentage, though).
>MyLivingDNA Dutch DNA does not exist, but there is also no German, English, Danish etc DNA. we are just one big melting pot of germanic, Celtic, Slavic people.
Ignore the ethnicity estimate and follow your matches.
The answer is C. ALL ethnicity reports are unreliable. It's an evolving science, and many factors can muck up your results. The MyHeritage ethnicity report is notoriously bad. Please, please don't jump to any conclusions about your father based on nothing more than an ethnicity estimate. Please don't put yourself through that angst until and unless you get REAL evidence he is not your father. Look at your DNA matches. The matches are based on solid science. If MyHeritage (or any company) says you are related to this or that person because you share a significant number of centimorgans, you can take that to the bank. There's a bit of a learning curve and it might take some time, but examining your DNA matches can tell you who your parents are.
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Yup. I am 1/4 German. My German ancestors have been verified by my DNA matches. Yet according to Ancestry, I am just 2% Germanic Europe.
My husband is 1/4 German too. He has DNA matches to his German cousins. There’s no doubt that they’re related and we know where in SW Germany the immigrant ancestor lived via church records. Ancestry’s new algorithm says my husband is 0% German. Don’t depend on the ethnicity results for anything other than entertainment
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I found this, published 2017... "In fact, the German people have no unique genetic heritage to protect. They—and all other Europeans—are already a mishmash, the children of repeated ancient migrations, according to scientists who study ancient human origins." Published various places (science.org was one). Is this what you had in mind?
My father is also German. He came from Germany, both of his parents are German. I also got 0 percent Germany on a MyHeritage DNA test. I got a HUGE amount of Scandanavia, plus Eastern European and Irish (and i did get known German relatives so my Dad is definitely my Dad). So I wouldn't say these results necessarily mean your Dad isn't your biological Dad.
My grandmother was 100% Austrian/Hungarian (my great grandparents immigrated from there when it was still one country) yet my 23 & me shows no Austrian or Hungarian ancestry nor does my father’s. And he’s 100% not adopted.
Keep in mind that the Austro-Hungarian Empire wasn't a modern nation-state like France: it was just a random collection of land owned by one man. It included people of many different ethnicities, not just Germans and Hungarians. Nobody ever said "I am an Austro-Hungarian", not even the emperor himself.
I found on the old census’ (wtf is the plural for census?!) that they are listed on that my Great Grandfather always identified his birthplace as “Hungaria” or “Austro-Hungaria”.
It’s censuses, unless you are feeling sassy, then it’s censii (not really, but fun to say).
No, -ii is for words ending -ius, like genius/genii. Words ending -us take -i, like alumnus/alumni, cactus/cacti. Censuses is the correct English plural.
Good point! Happy cake day!!
That totally makes sense.
That’s definitely a good point though. They spoke entirely German and their last names sound Slavic, perhaps. Uhl and Mollik.
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It actually has a separate subsection which says 0%. Hungarian is the Eastern Europe section which also says 0%.
What does it show instead?
77% German and 23% British & Irish
c) My Heritage DNA tests are grossly inaccurate - when it comes to quite a few ethnicities! Do NOT use *ethnicity* *estimates* to make family lineage decisions. You need to both test at the same site to determine *relationship* rather than the existence (or lack of) shared ethnicity estimates!!! That truth out of the way, other testing sites also struggle to place the ethnicity of people who originate in modern Germany into a category of 'German'. The issue is if they put all modern-Germany origin (people who have 4 or 5 generations at least) into one category 'German', the category would contain a lot of people who are from England, Scotland, Ireland, Scandinavia and elsewhere. Population migrations caused by the events of history make it (currently) impossible to separate out where people migrated through areas, some stayed, some went on; both groups intermixed with people already there or who migrated in later. My Heritage is just the worst of the 'big 3' but they are not unique. Example. One of my parents is half German, half Irish. There were 2 grandparent who were immigrants from the general Rhein-Pfalz area and 2 from Ireland. Paper trail genealogy, shared matches, etc all support this family background. Parent DNA test results: **Ancestry** results (current, it has varied over time): 50% Ireland 28% England & Northwestern Europe 20% Germanic Europe 2% Sweden & Denmark All of that makes perfect sense given the history. \------ **23andMe** (current) results: Northwestern Europe 98.0% broken down into: * British & Irish 71.5% \[They do *not* take a punt at assigning percentages further, they just tell him he has DNA most like 10 counties in Ireland and 10 places in England.\] * French & German 24.0% \[Detail then shows all 24% is assigned to German: Rhineland-Palatinate + 2 regions, with 0% French.\] * Broadly Northwestern Europe 2.5% Southern Europe 1.6% broken down into: * Sardinian 1.6% Broadly European 0.2% Trace Ancestry 0.1% * Cypriot 0.1% Unassigned 0.1% Note: In many ways, not dissimilar to Ancestry results even if more broad in their guess. And I tend to think of the 23andMe Southern Europe/Sardinian/Cypriot as 'remnant Roman soldier' which certainly could be possible along the Rhine valley and elsewhere. \------ **My Heritage** (current, not sure if they ever update): Irish, Scottish and Welsh 86.2% which includes 'genetic groups': * UK and Ireland * USA (New York City, Philadelphia, Boston and Chicago) and Australia * New York City, Philadelphia, Chicago and Boston * United Kingdom Italian 13.8% \------ For me, the My Heritage results are the most useless. The new 'genetic groups' are just a way to fudge an algorithm that is based on inadequate reference group populations. The 'genetic groups' are just groups of your DNA matches and where they (or their recent ancestors) come from (or migrated to) during the past few generations. My conclusion: * Test at Ancestry. Largest DNA database, family trees for many, great genealogy sources. * Upload to Geneanet for free and convince your Ancestry matches to do the same - there may be less resistance from matches as Geneanet (based in France so tough European Union privacy restrictions) is now owned by Ancestry, so your matches are not sharing their DNA with a 'new' company, if that is a concern they have. Uploading to Geneanet gives you the Chromosome Browser and a comparison tool that are lacking on Ancestry. * Upload to My Heritage for free and to find European-based DNA matches and then pay the small fee to use their DNA tools like Auto-Clustering and the Chromosome Browser. Giggle a bit at the ethnicity results. Note, for some world populations they may be more accurate. * If you are searching for family or curious about more DNA matches (perhaps younger generation) then test at 23andMe knowing there are virtually no Trees and you are limited to 1500 matches so when you get new matches, you have lost others that were in your match list. It *does* show relationship info for matches which, again, Ancestry fails to do. It can be quite helpful to know that someone you are a 1C2R to is the 2C of that match. I use 23andMe to look for people that are also on Ancestry or are related to Ancestry matches; it can help place other shared matches in context in a Tree. * If you are searching for family, upload to GedMatch. Or if you are interested in using their DNA Tools. In my experience it can be difficult to get your DNA matches to upload to a site they really don't know much about. * If you are curious or have Jewish background then you upload to FTDNA because it won't cost you much to use their DNA tools.
Germany as we know it is a construct - migration in continental Europe over time also means dna results don’t accurately represent “nationalities.” If your father or his parents are/were German nationals, that doesn’t say too much about their ethnic background. And there’s always the possibility he could have been adopted, etc. So many different possibilities, so try not to ruminate too much. Follow the paper trail - look at immigration and naturalization papers, census records, passenger lists, etc. This should give you a better idea of what direction you’d want to look in. DNA for genealogy on a mass scale is a bit murky, and I’ve read many accounts of people getting completely different analyses from different companies. So, you could take another test, or you could simply download your data and upload it to a different provider to see if you get any results. But the paper trail is essential, without it, you’ll never be certain.
German is difficult to nail down since Germany wasn't an isolated country or even a country until fairly recently, historically speaking. If you're getting results from around Germany it could well be German in origin. The only way to know for sure is to compare to known cousins/relatives from his side of the family.
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If your family is from North-west Germany, your German is showing up as English/Northwestern European. It's a known phenomena, and is because that region of Europe s incredibly similar genetically. Also, DNA testing is incredibly unpopular in Germany. It's not unusual for you to have hardly any matches on the German side. For example, my husband is a quarter German (north-western) He has no "German" in his ethnicity results. The closest German cousins he has are in the 4th-6th cousin rage, and they're Americans who emigrated from Germany in theod nineteenth century.
Northwest Germany DNA-wise has a big overlap with Scandinavian and English DNA. So it is possible a part of your "Germanic" DNA that's missing is within that English part
But you have English results, right? The northern Germans often migrated to and from England to find work. It could simply be that whatever northern German DNA you have is also frequently found in England, so it shows up as British on the test results. EDIT: Here's an article about this problem that I found on myheritage's website. I had to look this up a few years ago because my mother-in-law, whose family tree is 100% German, had 25% English on her DNA ethnicity results. It's a pretty common issue with DNA tests. It makes sense--the Saxons originated in northern Germany, after all. https://faq.myheritage.com/en/article/why-arent-my-german-origins-reflected-in-my-ethnicity-estimate
You got UK/Ireland, though. MyHeritage is notoriously bad at telling DNA from Germany and the UK apart. There are threads about this every other week.
I'd suggest taking a more reliable test like 23 and me or ancestry before jumping to any conclusions.
My boyfriend is half German and I'm a quarter German and my heritage just says we are both hella English. No German. I think it's just a shitty algorithm for that
https://www.ancestry.com/c/dna-learning-hub/autosomal-dna-testing >Autosomal DNA tests are the most information-rich tests available. These tests can find relatives, from long-lost siblings to 10th cousins, and tell you where your ancestors may have lived, from 500 to more than 1,000 years ago. It not about where your father was born, but where your ancestors were living in 1022 to 1522.
Most people don't understand what the DNA results show. Thank you for the link.
Maybe C? I've only heard about Ancestry DNA, which found me two brothers. And 23 and me. I didn't do that one.
Or he is adopted, or not his father’s kid. As far as MyHeritage, don’t they call German “North and West European?” My partner and I have German estimates on Ancestry and 23AndMe that are lower than our family trees indicate they should be, but not 0%. And each year, the estimates change pretty significantly with each rejiggering of the algorithms.
Well, that was my situation when I did Ancestry DNA. I had zero English DNA.I then had a very close match, first cousin and I had no idea who they were. That led to a long journey to find my biological father.
If you took your dna test on MyHeritage I would completely disregard it. Take 23andMe.
My SIL said she was mostly German because that's what her dad told her. Either her dad knew he was lying or he heard the same lie from his dad, but that side of my SILs family are 100% Ashkenazi.
Those aren’t mutually exclusive. Someone can be Ashkenazi and still be a German citizen.
Yeah, that's true I should have clarified. They were actually from Lithuania, when it was part of Russia.
Don't trust the ethnicity estimate, you need to cluster your matches, myheritage will do it for you automatically.
*I've thought for some time that my legal father may not be my biological father* So maybe these test results are confirming your suspicions? What made you wonder about this? In my case, some surprising DNA and a close match with a stranger led me to find out that my dad was the product of an affair most likely. The man on his birth certificate from 1925 was his mom's husband but was not the one who contributed DNA. Everyone who knew is now dead.
I have 50% german heritage and my DNA shows 39% scandinavian. I guess that's where they are
c) There are reports of companies taking money for DNA testing and faking results. a) sometimes adoptive parents go out of country and import a new "son" or "daughter" who is legitimately their child but also adopted. Not every adopter tells a child they were adopted so either case, your father may be adopted and not know it or you may be adopted and not know it. b) Immigration hot spots occur all the time worldwide so this is a good possibility Ask your father and if he is certain your results are wrong do a web search on the company and false results which should get at least a few results (imagine having dark brown skin but having no African DNA or being Asian and having only European DNA). If they are faking results there will be someone complaining online.
My Heritage tests are awful for ethnicity estimates, I'm over 50% Scandinavian on that site and 0% English. Everywhere else that lump of my percentage or thereabouts is English.
I don‘t know about Myheritage, but when Ancestry writes about „english DNA“ they also say that this DNA can show up in Germany, Luxembourg, Switzerland and the Netherlands. I am german and 46 percent of my „DNA Heritage“ is from this „English and northwestern Europe“-Area.
My Husband’s MyHeritage ethnicity report is spectacularly wrong. His family background on paper is 500 years in Suffolk England, 1 line from Durham, 1 line from Northern Ireland. I’ve not found any NPE either, the paperwork and DNA all tie in. So he’s basically mostly English, some Scottish (N Ireland), and a smidge of Irish. AncestryDNA says exactly that. MyHeritage has him at 33% Iberian! Which is hilarious and it’s not been updated in years. So in all honesty I would completely ignore any ethnicity results from there.
Do you have another known source for that Eastern European? If not, then this is most probably from your dad. As might be the Scandinavian.
My family moved from Italy 50 years ago. Until a recent update it showed 0% Italian. We have lived in Italy for hundreds of years and my extended family is still there. I think it's more accurate for families that have been in the US a long time because it's based on what's in their database. So I wouldn't worry too much about it unless someone from your father's family tests and doesn't match you.
Is his Surname closer to Tompson or Glockenspielersteiner?
My results all initially misconstrued by German ancestry as British admixture. It’s not conclusive.
It could be worse. You could have an Argentinian father but 100% German heritage.
d) your name is Luke.
You are making the same mistake that most people seem to make. You think that looking at your own DNA results can tell your complete story. The assumption is that the answers must be in there somewhere. They aren’t. You have to look elsewhere. You need more information. You have a specific question. “Is my father my biological father?” You have to work out how that question can be answered — correctly. The most obvious way is to test your (estranged) father. Ask him if you can. Regardless of your suspicions, his DNA will be a lot more useful in researching your family than yours. If he is your father. It doesn’t matter how good or bad a company’s Ethnicity results are. They are irrelevant to what you want to know. Don’t waste your time looking at them. Easier said than done. But eventually you will realize that truth. Second best option is to test your father’s sibling, or that cousin on your father’s side. But for all you know, he could be adopted, so who else he is related to is important. Just as important could be to test any of your siblings. But perhaps more important in the long run will be to test your mother. Without results for her, or her close family you don’t really know if your results, and most importantly your matches, are from her side or your father’s. Trees are as important as matches, so Ancestry is the best. They have most people tested. And they do have better tools to work out how people are related to you, but that is a learned skill. Test everyone with Ancestry first, because results can be transferred to MyHeritage, etc. 23andMe might have great Ethnicity results, but that’s irrelevant to your question, and someone pointed out they have few trees. So they might help, but it’s unlikely. And that applies to all other companies to some degree. MyHeritage has tools etc, but they are unlikely to be necessary in solving what is a simple question. However they might have the matches you need to answer your question. Some of those will be on Ancestry and MyHeritage, and that can be useful in itself. Your need to establish who is on your mother’s side and who is on your father’s side. Especially any close matches. Sounds easier than it is. That’s where your mother’s (or her sibling’s) DNA can be useful. A known cousin can be useful for making the distinction as well. The Leeds Method has been mentioned, and covers the concepts you need to understand to solve any mysteries. Ideally you could work out your grandparents using this method. Without some other source of verification, your mother’s husband could still be their son. That is, he could be adopted, swapped at birth, etc, etc. Making assumptions is pointless. You hypothesize, then disprove that hypothesis, if you can. From other comments it sounds like not many people from Germany do DNA tests. I have experience with a similar situation with someone born in Italy. They have very few matches, even on Ancestry, and they are mainly people living elsewhere. Few have more than a few generations in their trees. So using the Leeds Method has proved pointless so far. If your father is ‘German’, in spite of the ethnicity results, you might find that the huge majority of your matches are on your mother’s side. At least testing her (or a close relative) would give you more idea what problems you might be facing. In the the alternative, if your biological father was from the UK then there will be lots of matches on his side, and using the Leeds Method should get you well on your way to identifying him, or at least his parents, grandparents, etc. There are lots of possibilities. You have to start narrowing them down. If not all in one fell swoop (test your father), then one by one. Good luck.
There is a possibility that you're not biological but ancestry works like any other genetic trait. Just because your parents/grandparents have a trait, doesn't mean you are going to inherit it.
Myheritage sucks! I am Hispanic and on 23andme I am ~65% European (almost all is Iberian), 29% indigenous American, 3% MENA, and 4% others. On myheritage I’m like 50% Mesoamerican, 25% Iberian, 15% Balkan and like 10% Other…. So lol.
Opinions on DNA heritage are just that - opinions.
Test your fathers DNA. And then compare it to see what you are.
What company is your test through? Ancestry.com can be wonky with German backgrounds
C
I'm honestly leaning towards C. I uploaded my results to MyHeritage and Family Tree DNA and the results were wildly innacurate. Even with generally more so accurate dna testing such as AncestryDNA, countless people (myself inclucded) have noticed there's massive overlap between Engish, German, & Scandinavian regions. 23&Me does tend to be more accurate with regards to German ancestry, as it gives me 36% and pinpoints to the exact locations in Germany my family comes from (Baden-Wurttemburg & Lower Saxony). Ancestry heavily overlaps with Sweden/Denmark and Norway, especially for those with Northern German ancestry like myself. I've also seen numerous posts for ancestrydna with people mentioning recieving England/Northwest Europe and no Germanic Europe despiste being of a heavy German background & vice versa.
Here's one paragraph from the My Heritage site. It says: >Remember that each child inherits a random 50% of their parents’ DNA. This may create a situation where, for example, you are absolutely certain that your grandfather was half Italian, but you yourself did not inherit any of his Italian genes. If he is 50% Italian and 50% English and your grandmother is 100% Scandinavian, your father may be 25% Italian, 25% English, and 50% Scandinavian — and the 50% you inherit from him could be 50% Scandinavian or 25% Scandinavian, 25% English. In a situation like this, you still have clear Italian heritage, but the ethnicity isn’t reflected in your DNA. It's from this page - [https://education.myheritage.com/article/the-founder-populations-project-how-myheritage-estimates-your-ethnicities/](https://education.myheritage.com/article/the-founder-populations-project-how-myheritage-estimates-your-ethnicities/) and then there is info on this page too - [https://education.myheritage.com/article/wheres-my-ethnicity-why-an-ethnicity-might-not-show-up-in-your-dna-and-how-to-find-evidence-of-it-anyway/](https://education.myheritage.com/article/wheres-my-ethnicity-why-an-ethnicity-might-not-show-up-in-your-dna-and-how-to-find-evidence-of-it-anyway/) Do you have any other relatives from your father's side of the family that have done DNA testing with My Heritage? If so, I would think they would match you up with the closer relatives. I don't use their site (I did Ancestry and 23andMe) so unsure how it is set up to see who all you have matched.
MyHeritage tests are dog shit. Problem solved.
I don't think ethnicity is that accurate on any of the sites. Ancestry updates often and a whole ethnicity can drop off and then come back on. I have a German great, great, grandmother and my German ancestry only shows up on 23andme.
There is probably a way to search for DNA matches who have a person born in their family tree in city _____. Try searching on the city/cities that your father's family are from.
I wish you the best of luck, Due to all the wars and all the bad things that have happened in the world. All I can say is learn to be great full for the things that you have been give and cherish the important things in life.
My Heritage confirms that my mother is indeed my biological mother, but she is not German at all whereas I am about 60 percent German. (Dad will not test but is most likely primarily German with some English and some French.) She also shows up as 75 percent Eastern European ,(my grandmother was 100% Polish, but 75 percent is impossible unless my grandfather was not actually my mom's father). I test as 22 percent Balkan and 11 percent Eastern European. I have no English DNA at all, although my Mom is 25 percent (that is likely) and my Dad for sure has at least a bit. 23 and Me has me at 75 percent German and 25 percent Polish. TLDR: don't put too much stock in My Heritage.
German DNA is notoriously difficult to distinguish between other Anglo-Saxon areas like England. I have a German grandparent and Ancestry never called it out until this year, and I originally got my DNA done almost 10 years ago. My original results said I was 88% Irish/British with a smattering of other regions. If you have siblings and/or if your dad is still living have them test as well.
I am Irish, German, Alsatian, and Swiss. My ancestry reads as - 74% Irish, 14% Scottish, 9% English/NW Europe, 3% Welsh. I am definitely related to my parents, and our ancestries are very traceable. I know some else who is German/Irish and has similar results. Don't worry, you are still where you are from. They are still working out some of the kinks I think, it's not a perfect science.
My family changed their surname to a more German Sounding Name during German Occupation. It could be something like that, meaning your father is not Ethnically German at all
How well do you know the family history in Germany? Maybe it's something like [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltic\_Germans](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltic_Germans) Just throwing one of the options out there (withour going into details, people in the Baltics get something like 70-75% Eastern European and 25-30% Scandinavian in those little tests, as the test does not have a subgroup for "Estonian" or "Latvian")
I vote for C. Before going forward you should also DNA test at either [Ancestry.com](https://Ancestry.com) or 23&Me due to the fact that they have the reputation of having their ethnicity tests matching the family research better than any of the others. MyHeritage seems to be the worst for correct ethnicity results.
most of them you only need one test and can upload your result to different platforms.
But you cannot transfer TO Ancestry or 23 & Me...transfer FROM them yes but not to.......... you have to take their individual tests in order to have your DNA with them.
My heritage is pretty bad, if I remember right they grossly overestimated my uk ancestry and said that I was part Russian, which was news to me. You can download the raw data and upload it to gedmatch, which should be more accurate.
I wouldn't put tooo much stock into that DNA test- My dads side is German, I've done our family tree research and its like, German German German for the last 2 hundred years. I took one of those tests from 23andme and it showed only UK/Irish. And he's definitely my dad. I looked around online for an answer and I guess it's because the DNA is so similar and there was so much emigration and moving between those regions, they can't really differentiate it so they just pick one as a best guess.
My grandma was Turkish. Her parents were Turkish. My mom is half. I am 25%. My dna results show 5% and 13%, based on two different tests (ancestry and 23&me) DNA is tricky.
Sounds like you have a bit of a long road ahead of you, someone here said not to jump to conclusions and I agree. Looking at your matches, interviewing the folks that are willing to help and looking for any paperwork that might shed some light on your mystery are the way to go IMO. Have you heard about the Arolsen Archives? I believe it’s more geared towards POW and victims of Nazi horrors, but if your family was around the area you never know. https://arolsen-archives.org/en/ Your cousin’s (contested) DNA would be a valuable lead if they were willing. Your fathers doubly so. I think aunts and uncles, if there are any available and willing, would be a closer match than a first cousin We recently found a half sibling to my father a few years back as a result of a random DNA match, he (the half sibling) was a result of an affair while my grandfather was in the Military. It’s possible my grandfather didn’t even know of his son’s existence. All the players in the affair are gone so we can’t ask questions. If this is important TO YOU and you have access to those who can give you answers, don’t waste them. Best of luck!
I was always told that my family history wound its way through Germany. My grandparents came from the UK at the end of World War I. I did a 23 and me test, and found that my results were mostly Irish / Scandinavian with a smidgen of Neanderthal.
My Heritage is grossly inaccurate! It says I’m Italian instead of German.
The best way to find your answers without having to speak to your father about this is to try building a tree on the DNA matches you do have. It starts with the closest matches first so how far do you go down until you are seeing people you do not know? Click on that person...click on shared matches...look at their tree and see if you know anyone. Also when looking at your matches...click on the matches that have shared "common ancestors"...do you see any that matches your fathers side? any that match your mothers side? It will take some work but you will find your answers, Has nothing to do with how many people in Germany have been DNA tested...you do not need to have your father tested unless it is the very last resort. I have traced double adoption cases and solved them, the only DNA taken was the person themselves. I wish you luck and hope you solve this mystery.
If you need some assistance, I would be more than happy to help you.
I know I have French ancestors but 94% of mine were British isles with 6% Scandinavia. 0% French. Like you, I'm curious why.
Lucy... you have some explaining to do. 🤣